The Visitor
by wynnebat
Summary: Bellatrix visits Alice at St. Mungo's. Second person POV. Femslash.


Written for Cheeky Slytherin Lass's All Year Long Competition – Round Two.

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The Visitor

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"Healer Vaisey," you say, tapping your wand against your hand, just waiting for him to anger you enough for you to send a curse at him. "You really are displeasing me."

Vaisey clenches his hands and says nothing.

"As well as displeasing my master," you continue, but all the Healer does is shake his head. You run your wand over your Dark Mark, and you're sure he can feel it on his own. "Our master. You don't want to do that, do you?"

"Please, give me a moment to—"

"To run away? That would be a shame."

He closes his eyes, rests his hands on his desk. The desk of the head healer at St. Mungo's. The desk of a dead man if he doesn't act fast.

"The patients are innocent in this war," he whispered. "They don't deserve – not this. They don't deserve to die like this."

"Dear man," you reply, feeling much too amused. "You don't really think I care, do you?"

You don't tell him that you're here for only one patient. It will be good for him, to wonder what you did in his hospital while he stayed in his office, too scared to alert either side. He won't ever find out that there aren't more Death Eaters outside the hospital, and in his house, waiting for him to leave before you allow it.

You smile at him before you leave the room, and he closes his eyes to it all, pretends not to see. You can almost envision the picture in his imagination: yourself, cackling madly as you make your way through the children's ward, indiscriminately shooting killing curses; your fellow Death Eaters, tearing down the walls; the Dark Lord already in his house, torturing his family insane. It's a pleasant image, but that's not what you're here for.

This late at night, only the most essential staff is here, and none are in the long-term ward. That ward is mainly monitored by spells. If you were the type of person to care, you might almost find it depressing. Blank eyes greet you from all directions, as well as a few addled greetings. None recognize your Death Eater robes, and the person you're here to see isn't even awake. It's a shame.

You sit in her visitor's chair, where her surviving family must have sat for hours at a time.

You're not her family. Nor are you her friend, her colleague, her wife. You're much more important than that.

Crossing your legs doesn't make the chair more comfortable, neither does trying to shift your position.

"A terrible place you have here, Alice," you say.

She doesn't respond.

Fitting, you suppose.

If the time were a decade ago, you'd have climbed in her rickety bed already, begun to kiss her until whatever is left of her wakes up. But Azkaban changed you, and not for the better. Better for Alice, maybe.

For now, Alice sleeps, forty years old and still beautiful.

You should have killed her when you had the chance. It's a beginner mistake, one you never thought you'd make. You spared her life but not her mind that day, just because your lord was dead and you couldn't imagine life without one of them in your life.

If you'd killed her, you wouldn't be here, letting the past rear its ugly head.

"Do you remember what I told you? That I'd kill you if you married him?"

Of course not. Alice doesn't remember anything, these days. She doesn't remember the mistakes of her youth, the way she married a man just to please her parents. She doesn't feel the need to chase after a woman who would destroy her, utterly and carefully, until the only word she could say was "Bella."

Leaning down, you whisper a slow-acting, unstoppable curse into Alice's mouth, taking in the taste of her lips against your own once more. It is the only kiss Alice should have had, the only lips that should've graced hers, the only fingers in her cunt, the only lover in her bed. Instead, Alice turned her heel and ran into the arms of a man who could never make her happy.

But even though you will kill her, will watch her die as your lord takes over the world, you know it is you who lost.

Alice left. Alice won.

You're not the type to forgive her for that.


End file.
